May 15 (Bloomberg) -- Cukurova Holding AS, owned by Turkish
billionaire Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, is seeking a loan of about
$1.6 billion to recover a disputed 13.8 percent stake in
Turkey’s biggest mobile-phone operator from Russia’s Alfa Group,
two people with knowledge of the matter said.

Cukurova has until the end of June to repay as much as
$1.59 billion to Alfa, an investment company owned by Russian
billionaire Mikhail Fridman, to recover the holding in Turkcell
Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, said the people, who asked not to be
named because the process is confidential. That would leave Alfa
with a stake of 13.2 percent.

Cukurova plans to use the Turkcell stake as collateral for
the long-term loan, the people said. It may also use assets at
oil company unit Genel Energy Plc, co-owned with former BP Plc
Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward, one of the people said.

Turkcell has been at the center of a dispute between its
founder, Karamehmet, Nordic operator TeliaSonera AB and Fridman.
Alfa seized the Turkcell stake when it said Cukurova defaulted
on a 2005 loan agreement for which the shares were pledged as
collateral.

Court Ruling

“We view the news moderately positive,” Bora Tezguler, an
analyst at Istanbul-based Ak Investment, said in an e-mailed
note. “The news shows some further progress in the
proceedings.”

Cukurova began work to seek loans after the U.K.’s Privy
Council decided last year that Cukurova should be given a chance
to repay the debt to Alfa before the Russian investor could
seize the shares.

About a third of Turkcell’s shares are traded in Istanbul
and New York. Sweden’s TeliaSonera is the biggest stakeholder
with a 38 percent stake. Still, Cukurova controls the company
through a complicated shareholder structure.

Cukurova and Alfa agreed in 2005 on a finance package
totaling $3.3 billion as the Istanbul-based investor was seeking
$2 billion to repay debt to the government after the collapse of
a bank it had owned.

Cukurova and Alfa signed the agreement, which included a
$1.7 billion loan for which 13.8 percent of Turkcell shares were
pledged as collateral, after Cukurova pulled out of an earlier
accord with TeliaSonera to sell a controlling stake at the
mobile-phone operator for $3.1 billion. That prompted the Nordic
company to sue to enforce the sale.